Right, so this is probably not for everyone – but I just wanted to share.

#Disclaimer

I am real big fan of VI and I do tend to think the default WordPress interface is a bit confusing, especially – if you just want to write.

Too many option, too much stuff on the screen.

When the stress is ON and my attention-span is reduced to the one of a goldfish, it becomes really easy to lose your focus – and WordPress admin doesn’t help much. That is why I like VI so much – and thereore I was looking for a way to deploy it for the management of my writing.

which will edit the given post (in VI – if vim is your default editor) – and then when you just escape – save exit – it will auto publish the new version.

That’s basically it.

Now – further development are about combining this tool with a similar tool – producing text – like Notional Velocity (Mac) or Terminal Velocity (Linux/Unix) – SimpleNote (Windows/Mac/Linux). and adding some extra commanding line tooling for image preview and image upload for which we could use tranfer.sh maybe…

That is really all there is to it – but I just to share cause i was excited about this whole set up.

But… that is still also one of the best way we know to actually coordinate with each other and make sure agreements flows into an organisation.

Yet, when you call for a meeting you can still make sure your time will be well used by creating a frame within which the conversation will happen.

What do you need this meeting for?

A meeting about a topic in general is not good enough for people to really prepare to your meeting (we assume people want to come prepared to your meeting).

So are you trying to:

kickstart a project / an event

solve a problem

define a strategy

agree on an issue

Get feedback

Share experiences (debriefing post-event for instance).

Create a political space for people to vent

Once you know what you want to achieve during the meeting, get more precise:

Kickstart the project / an event

Probably you are gathering the team that will work on this event – so you can either send the list of roles before hand or if you do not have it yet, then define as an outcome : to have a list of roles.

Maybe you need to create a schedule for the event, then define it as an outcome : to produce a schedule.

Or, as an alternative, someone can be tasked to provide a suggestion and then your meeting is a review meetingwhere the outcome is an approved schedule.

Solving a problem

Are there materials that participants can read before the meeting?

Was there a email conversation that should be shared with the participants?

Can you create context around the problem?

What does thesolved problem looks like? (hints: an approved budget, people hugging, a decision made…)

Define a strategy

Issomeone responsible to present a strategy at the meeting?

Can you send ahead of time the materials that should be read to help understand what are the constraints on the strategy?

What is the time span for this strategy?

How critical is everyone to be in the meeting?

Can two people take the responsibility to create a strategy document instead and present it to the rest of your team – turing the meeting into a shorter maybe more efficient review meeting?

Agree on an issue

What is the problem and where are the disagreements?

Can you provide a brief of the pros and cons on the issue before the meeting?

Can you formulate the issue as a question?

This way, people could think about it before the meeting.

Define the type of meetings

It may help – to frame your meeting as a :

Kickstart meeting

Review meeting

Update meeting

Conflict-resolution meeting

etc.

And define your deliverables as an outcome

A task list

A schedule

A strategic decision

A list of role/responsibilities

An project updates summary

A list of problem to solves

A list issues to take in consideration

etc.

Conclusion

All these are just general examples, but the point is that you want people to come ready and know the meeting was left with a clear progress – so try to frame your progress as deliverables that are produced by the end of the meeting.

Yes, procrastination sucks, but it is part of life, stop complaining about it and do something about it.

Here are some tips I am using myself or have used at some point and have helped me along the way.

Start somewhere with a schedule for your days with objectives

Achieving your goals assumes you have defined some, and if your day is not going as you want, probably worth thinking what was that you wanted on the first place, what were you goals for the day, and what did you plan to achieve that you didn’t do. Because if you don’t make goals, that’s the best way to fail at meeting them.

Claim back your time by cutting your meetings in half

Yes meetings are important – but if you try to cut the chase in the meeting and get to a conclusion in half the time, you’d be surprised how much blabla and useless talk can go into a meeting and you’d be able to achieve more.

Gain clarity by defining clear deliverables

It is what youcreatenot what youdo that matter.

Focus on the outcomes, not on the activities.

People do not care what you did all day, if there are no results.

What is the result of your work?

Can it have a tangible form?

These are questions you may need to ask yourself from time to time.

These outcomes can be :

an email produced

an presentation

an article

or report.

etc.

It is also okay to explore, especially when you do not know what you need to do or produce, especially true when you deal with some innovative and creative process, when you are not sure, you need to think, so you spend a lot of time researching.

But even this can be structured in a deliverable:

it can be a list of materials you gathered

it can be made into a blog post

it can be a zip file, with a bunch of PDF for reuse.

Anyway, when you feel your time is going away with no result, it can be useful to clarify the deliverables.

In the end time management is a question of importance

In the end, it is all question of importance. You lose time because you don’t care enough about your time to take your day seriously and make every minute count.

Finally watch this :

David Allen has broken down the science of productivity into a method he called GTD – for getting things done. It is based on real scientific data, originally from some work done by the the NASA on stress. I am a big fan of his work personally and would strongly recommend you get his book.

Meanwhile you can watch a talk he gave at Google a while ago but which is to me still one of the best out there:

Some ex navy seal guy, they do army-style training programs for people who like to get their butt kicked.

But also, they happen to have very good content on psychology of motivation (which actually make sense given what they do as a job.)

The following video is about the reasons behind lack of motivation, lazy-style, I’ll do it tomorrow approach.

TL;DW: Lazy is incompetence-driven. You don’t think you can do it, so you try to avoid doing it. And when you do, you figure out you actually suck, then most people just drop out here, and the real deal is to go beyond this feeling.

I find this fascinating on so many levels.

At a personal level, I can totally identify I did that myself so many times, and to really understand the root of the problem is a first step toward solving it.

But, from an HR perspective it just highlights the importance of training to create motivation, and drive mastery within the organisation.

From a marketing perspective, it just remind us that UX is here to make it feel it is easy, because else, it doesn’t happen, users are not thrilled.

The resistance is some phenomenon well known of creative people, entrepreneurs and anybody trying to make something different and/or new happen – to some extent it is like a force of nature that manifest itself against our will to improve, our desire to advance.

The resistance is the dark side of the force, here to maintain our free choice in the grand scheme of thing.

But mostly, resistance is a little bitch.

Many authors have talked about this phenomenon.

The best I have ever read so far is Steven Pressfield, who dedicated a number of books to it, and his words are so accurate that it is a must read for everyone in the business of making shit happen.

The short answer is : you don’t. There is no such thing as “staying” motivated. Instead you need to cultivate necessity.

Necessity

You know this feeling you get when you’re getting dangerously close to a deadline. Like you have to get that shit done. Now. Err.. actually yesterday, but yeah, now. And you get full power into your essay/project/report. That feel like motivation, right? So now the question is more how do I stay motivated all the time? Not just when I get close to a deadline, but when I want to.

Think about it for a moment, the high pressure coming from a danger (missed deadline) is a high necessity. So you need it and you do it.

To get wired on your goals, and achieve what you want in life, you have to need these goals in the first place.

You are like “I would like to want to get my degree, but instead I’ll just chill today” You want results but not as hard as you wanna chill.

So, first change your source of information, what you watch, what you read, until you become something else.

To be somewhere, you have to be someone else, so become some else.

Because we are wired to do just what we need to do, get to the point where you need to achieve your goal.

Do the work.

You know it is true. You know it is right but you do not get to do it.

Too busy? Too lazy?

Maybe you are just unclear with your goals.

Humans are goal-driven animals. We just cannot move our little finger if we do not have a reason for it. It may be a primal instinct that drive you toward action, and skip the rationalisation altogether, or it may be a cold rationalised series of strategic moves, or a mix of both. Whatever it is, the clearer it will be for you, the better off you will be.

Too often, lack of productivity and the feeling of being in the busy hamster wheel is the result of a lack of clarity.

By lack of clarity, I mean that your head tells you one thing, but your guts tell you an other one, and you get confused.

When you get confused your brain is activating its internal brakes and you won’t get far.

Like, you know you should be finishing this report, but hell, that TED talk on the future of education is soooo interesting… hey! look a video on hamster… 2 hours later… no new lines on this report, or not much progress on this design thing, or whatever you were supposed to get done is yet to get done.

Why?

Because you don’t know why you were supposed to do this report on the first place… Like, yeah, you know it’s tied to your project/job/commitment to someone, but why was that someone important? What do you do this project? How is this linked to your long terms goal? etc.

In short, you need to get your guts and your brain to reconnect.

How?

Get a piece of paper, your daily journal, an old envelop, whatever you can, and a pen. Write down:

“I want to do this report because X”

“I want to do X because Y”

“Y because Z”

etc.

Go as far as possible in your chain of causality until your life purpose and this report reconnect. Until this report make sense in your life again.

Unless it doesn’t, and then figure out how to get out of here, because your life won’t get much better if you keep doing shit you hate because it is not what you want to do anyway.